HOUSTON: Combining robotic fabrication with 3D printing offers “amazing” opportunities for architecture and could help solve the global affordable housing crisis, according to Coop Himmelb(I) au founder Wolf D Prix.
The Austrian architect is pioneering the use of robots at one of his latest projects – the Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition (MOCAPE) in Shenzhen.
A team of robots will assemble the museum’s irregularly curved stainless-steel centre, saving time and money. Led by a building information modelling (BIM) system, they will mould, assemble, weld and polish the hyperbolic metal plates.
“Normally this part of the building would take eight months with 160 workers on the site,” said Prix. “Now we need eight workers on site, and it takes 12 weeks”…